


Drinking at the End of the World

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 19:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4448621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert drowns his sorrows with step-auntie Val as they both face an uncertain future. Set after 24th July 2015 episode.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drinking at the End of the World

Val takes a long look at him - the pillowy sulk of his upturned mouth, the hair plastered to his forehead, the drooped stance and averted gaze – and reaches inside the drinks cabinet. “I think we’re gonna need to start on the hard stuff, pet,” she says.

There’s a rustle of paper and Eric is up on his feet, giving Val a warning look that says – _tonight of all nights Valerie?_ – but she shuts him down with a single glance and pinches two glasses together by the rim, beckoning the heavy footed Robert over to her favourite cosy spot of the BnB.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Eric says, his goodbye barely registering with either of the glum pair.

Val takes great satisfaction in the weighty glug of liquid as it pours into the glass. She’s decided for both of them that they’re beyond the luxuries of ice and she hands him the whiskey straight up – no fuss. He accepts it wordlessly, his gangly height making him appear all limbs even in the large chair, yet even so he looks small, screwed up and foetal. His face is pink and splotchy too, but looking better now than when she found him wandering up Main Street grimacing in the way men do when they feel sorry for themselves. She’d wanted to get out a hankie, but alcohol and a bed for the night seemed like a better option. 

“I suppose you’ve heard,” he says. He sounds like a boy, not a man, his chin pressed against his chest, like he’s been dragged kicking and screaming towards scolding parents. He hasn’t got either anymore, save for an interfering step-mother and she’s probably part of the problem. What Val wouldn’t give for a moment’s compassion and understanding from her own sister.

Val lets the warmth of the alcohol numb her tongue and sits back. “About your extra-curricular dalliances,” she says, watching his facial muscles twitch in discomfort. She lets her mind drift, back to younger days, back to a flirtation with a wrench-clenching lust object of her own (a Cliff or a Colin – she can’t remember the exact details) and loses half a minute just reminiscing before she turns back to her slow-blinking step nephew. “We’ve all been there, son. A strapping lad in overalls with his hairy forearms. Getting all hot and steamy…” Val shivers at her own memories.

Robert raises his hands and she watches his jaw tighten like someone is turning the cogs. “I’m not gay,” he says, quicker than a reflex.

“Never said you were,” Val says, reaching forward and topping up his glass. “All I’m saying is, I don’t blame you. He’s a good looking lad.”

The alcohol is taking hold of him she sees, his soft eyes wilt under the weight of his lids. He stares, silent and intense at the liquid, jamming his foot against the leg of an opposite chair and letting his brow crease in his own pity party. If she wasn’t indulging in her own misery so much she might have opted for the tough love approach, but instead she lets him mutter.

“It was a mistake,” he says when they’ve been sat in silence for a while and Tracy’s wandered past to say she’s headed to bed.

“No,” she says, the whiskey swirling behind her eyes. She jabs a finger, pointed in his direction. “A mistake is letting someone trick you into signing your life away and ending up behind bars. Shagging someone else on your own doorstep is just plain stupid!”

“I know, alright! I know.”

“I was a victim of my own good nature. You went in with your pants round your ankles!”

Robert scoffs and his lord of the manor bravado rises to the surface as he leans forward. “Like you’re a saint.”

“At least I know when to plead guilty.”

“You’re only doing that because you’ve got no choice,” Robert says, ignoring all politeness and swiping the bottle for himself.

“So what was your grand plan, oh-wise-one? Keep popping out for a quickie when your wife’s back was turned until the end of days? Or until they both got sick of the sight of ya?”

“You know nothing about it.”

“I know a liar when I see one,” she says, snatching the bottle back from him. They’d already managed half between them – it’d be one hell of a headache in the morning. “Playing at living up there with Lady Muck-“

“Don’t you talk about her like that. She’s my wife.”

Val is possessed by a fit of sharp laughter. “Please! You can’t have much respect for the poor lass if you were plugging away at Aaron every chance you got.”

Robert drains his glass and slams it on the circular table that separates them and rises, unsteadily to his feet.

“Sit down you daft bugger,” she says and then because the whiskey flips the mood like a coin, she finds herself patting his knee in a brief display of sympathy. She knows he has more pride than to cry in front of her, but he wells up regardless, rubbing the back of his hand against eyes that are blood red. He talks about Andy, about the rejection he expects from his sister when she hears how he treated Katie, he talks about Diane and the business he’s put everything into. It’s only when he stops to lift the glass to his lips, that Val realises he hasn’t talked about his wife. And just when she thinks he might, when a sharp slide of pitch takes over his voice and the drink makes the whine a little shakier, he says something she doesn’t expect.

“And he hates me too. Not that I blame him.”

“Who, pet?” Then the penny drops and the look on his face cuts through the fog in her head. “Aaron.”

He tries for a moment to reject this concept, to wave it away with the shake of his head, but the whiskey’s made him slow and unfocused.

Val places her hand across her chest with a flourish that comes naturally, not one that’s induced by Eric’s finest single malt. “I am the soul of discretion, you know you can talk to me about all your innermost feelings and I won’t breathe a word.”

Robert rests his elbows on his knees and pushes a hand through his hair. A disbelieving burst of air sniffs from his nose. “Feelings,” he says and then much colder, more practised. “What feelings?”

“You tell me, Robert,” - she says – “because you throwing away all that just for a bit of mano a mano action…I don’t believe it.”

He hugs his knees and she feels like she is looking at a boy again – a lost boy. “It wasn’t meant to be like this,” he says. “It’s ruined everything.”

Val reaches across and places her hand into the soft, tired hair at the back of his head. She’s grateful for one thing – and she isn’t usually one to find joy in other’s misery, not at all – Robert’s predicament has taken her mind off her impending fate. How she longs to be caught up in some sexually charged adolescent dilemma, how easy life would seem if that were her only concern. No, she is facing the end of life, the end of her world as she knows it. But then his words filter back to her and she hears them again – properly this time – and she remembers how love can feel like the end of the world when it’s the last thing you want.

“That’s love for you,” she says, with a gentle sigh. “Comes outta nowhere and doesn’t let you forget it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta admit defeat.”

Together they toast to the end of the world.


End file.
